Civilizations are living organisms striving to survive and develop through predictable stages of birth, growth, maturation, decline and death. An often overlooked factor in the success or failure of civilizations are cultural memes—the knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors passed down from generation to generation. Cultural memes are a much more significant driver of human evolution than genetic evolution. Entire civilizations have been weeded out when their belief system proved maladaptive to a changing environment. One such cultural meme holding sway over today’s governments, institutions, and society is our economic system of capitalism. The pillars of capitalism represent a belief system so ingrained in today’s culture that they form a sort of cargo cult amongst its adherents.Cargo cults are any of the various Melanesian religious groups which focused on obtaining material wealth(manufactured Western goods that came on cargo ships) through magical thinking, religious rituals and practices. Today the term “cargo cult” is used to describe a wide variety of phenomena that involve superficial imitation of a process or system in order to fabricate a successful outcome without even the basic understanding of its mechanism.

The tenets of capitalism are ritually followed in the proclaimed belief that “a rising tide lifts all boats”, i.e. so-called improvements in the general economy will benefit all participants in that economy. Centuries of unbridled capitalism have demonstrated beyond any doubt that it does not lift all boats. A new study finds that half of Americans are “shut off from economic growth”. The rules of the game are so stacked against the masses that this week a professor said “only all-out thermonuclear war might fundamentally reset the existing distribution of resources.” Capitalism’s imperative for expansion, growing profit levels, and efficiency has ultimately dehumanized our culture. Not even when our basic life support systems are being torn asunder do the vast majority question the path we are on. We are all a captive audience to the system and those few dissident voices are snuffed out under the wheels of “progress”.

Truth be told, the corporate elite have long written off all those people living hand to mouth. Trump’s pick for Labor Secretary said, unlike workers, machines are “always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there’s never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.” Massive global unemployment resulting from the automation revolution has not yet been addressed by governments. Roughly half of all jobs in the U.S. are at risk of automation and two-thirds in the developing countries. This is all coming at a time when humans are fast destroying the ecosystems underpinning the very foundation upon which human civilization has developed over thousands of years. Mass migration of climate refugees will only further destabilize governments, stoke ethnic and cultural tensions, and give rise to fascist political movements. No conspiracy is needed to exterminate the “useless eaters”, just allow mother nature to take its course and climate change will be killing billions by mid century. Those in military planning know this and periodically express their fear of what is coming, but business-as-usual rolls on.

Capitalism’s constant impetus to shift costs, risks, and burdens off industry and onto the environment and society carries on under the guise of “being more competitive”. It’s a way of externalizing costs to maximize profit and if these costs were truly taken into account, none of the world’s top industries would be profitable(Interestingly, the link to this study has been scrubbed from the internet). It’s the height of magical thinking to put so much faith in some mystical “invisible hand of the free market” to solve existential threats such as an ever-widening wealth gap and the wholesale destruction of planetary life-support systems. There is no benevolent “invisible hand” turning individual self-interest into the common good. The primary mandate of capitalism is to protect and grow capital. The “invisible hand” is just a bunch of people scrambling to make as much money as possible, not caring or oblivious to those they hurt in the process. Fuck the invisible hand of the market. The invisible hand of mother nature will punish those who squander Earth’s rich but finite resources.

Note that the Permian Mass extinction is estimated to have happened anywhere over the course of 200,000 years to 15 million years. The current 6th mass extinction is happening orders of magnitude faster due to a multitude of factors including deforestation, habitat fragmentation, chemical pollution, poaching, etc., making this current disaster very unique in Earth’s history:

The team of geologists and biologists say that our current extinction crisis is unique in Earth’s history due to four characteristics: the spread of non-native species around the world; a single species (us) taking over a significant percentage of the world’s primary production; human actions increasingly directing evolution; and the rise of something called the technosphere. – Link

Perhaps the fate of humans was written in stone once we stood upright and developed tools. To a large degree, modern technology has been an expression of the energy-dense hydrocarbon fuels we discovered and are not willingly giving up anytime soon. Once fossil fuels ignited the Industrial Revolution and the Haber–Bosch process unleashed the human population bomb, nothing could stop the deadly carbon consumption feedback loop, not even decades of scientific warnings.

From a throwback to our primate ancestors, modern humans have been hard-wired to ignore threats that are not immediate or local; global ecological overshoot(of which climate is just one aspect) is imperceptible to the real-time cognitive processing of humans and represents the ultimate under-the-radar threat able to undermine our reasoning and response:

Psychological concepts of how we view the world around us, including ‘creeping normalcy’ or ‘landscape amnesia’, block day-to-day comprehension of what accelerating human activities represent—whether it is human population, the number of dammed rivers, forest destruction, or the impact of motor car emissions in a timespan that is geologically brief. Creeping normalcy refers to slow trends concealed in noisy fluctuations that people get used to without comment, while landscape amnesia describes forgetting how different the landscape looked 20–50 years ago (Diamond 2005: 425).

In his study of how societies fail, biogeographer Jared Diamond calls global warming a pre-eminent example of a ‘slow trend concealed by wide up and down fluctuations’ (2005: 425). He likens the denial of climate change impacts by leading politicians, including former US president George W. Bush (and his contemporary John Howard in Australia), in the late 1990s and early 2000s to the elite of ‘the medieval Greenlanders [who] had similar difficulties recognizing that their climate was gradually becoming colder, and the Maya and Anasazi (in Central and North America) [who] had trouble discerning that theirs was becoming drier’ (2005: 425). – link

We evolved to react to imminent dangers, not slow-rolling and seemingly invisible catastrophes as an unintended consequence of our cushy lifestyle. From lofty corporate boardrooms to the filthy streets of skid row, the mass of humanity is following the same biological script of overshoot and collapse seen in every organism from bacteria to reindeer herds. Fossil fuels only enabled the destruction to multiply a million-fold, culminating in one final and spectacular explosion of human activity that will leave the planet nearly barren for eons.

Open-ended growth appears to be inherent in nature, all the way from the DNA to the arthropods to mammals, including humans. Open-ended growth is the psychology of a cancer cell. I am not sure I know of a species which has learnt how to limit its own growth. Unfortunately species which transcend their environmental resources can hardly survive – the final arbiter of the climate impasse will be nature itself. ~ Andrew Glikson, Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Australian National University

The beauty and wonder of this planet is being trashed by a naked ape whose cleverness in tool-building has far outstripped his ability to handle it in any restrained or judicious manner. Nature’s rich book of life is being pancaked into a cheap, crumpled comic book.

Add in the development of mass consumerism, planned obsolescence, and the hypnosis of corporate-sponsored TV and you have a passive, malleable population happily marching towards the slaughterhouse. It’s fitting, then, that the masses would be swindled by a megalomaniac bankruptcy artist who dabbled in Reality TV. Every one of Trump’s cabinet picks is a big middle finger in the faces of those who fell for his pseudo-populist rhetoric: billionaires, Wall Street sharks, Goldman Sachs alumni, and hardcore laissez-faire capitalists chomping at the bit to deregulate, monetize, and privatize every last bit of what remains. The allure of capitalism has always been that you’re just one lucky break away from becoming one of those fat cats, if only someone would give you a chance. A prescient observation by Ugo Bardi from earlier this year:

Trump is a symptom of the ongoing breakdown of the social pact…capitalizing on this breakdown by…playing on the attempt of the white (former) middle class to maintain at least some of its previous prosperity and privileges. Trump is…an unavoidable consequence of resource depletion. – Link

The bottom line is that a swing towards authoritarianism happens when resources become scarce. Climate change is simply a symptom of humans overshooting the planet’s carrying capacity. Free market ideologues are nearly always climate ‘skeptics’ because acknowledging the reality of human-induced climate change would be an admission that industry must be curtailed or controlled. Left-leaning people nearly always accept the science because it goes along with their criticisms of capitalism which externalizes social and environmental costs for the benefit of just a few at the top of the economic hierarchy. Thus we see parasitic Trump surrounding himself with right-wing, climate denying, fossil fuel corporatists and insiders who will be doing everything in their power to dismantle health and environmental regulations including privatizing social services which are barriers to capitalist expansion.

To be blunt, our chance of developing a sustainable culture passed us by a long time ago. People will try to adapt until they cannot, and myths will be created to explain away harsh realities. A dystopic future in all its horrific glory has arrived: baked-in biospheric collapse, the inherent and irreconcilable contradictions of techno-capitalism, a dysfunctional political system unable to come to terms with root causes, and the cognitive dissonance of the masses blind to the bigger picture. Our numbers are not a safeguard from extinction.

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About xraymike79

I’m a social critic, political/cultural commentator and artist. The modern industrial world is sleepwalking towards the cliff of economic and ecological ruin. Most are oblivious to the paradigm shift that is occurring, but some are starting to awaken to the false stories our culture has told itself. My objective is to highlight important news stories and essays to find the hidden truth behind what Joe Bageant called the American Hologram.
www.collapseofindustrialcivilization.com

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107 thoughts on “Extinction is the End Game”

Reblogged this on Foodnstuff and commented:
Brilliant writing as usual, from xraymike79 at collapseofindustrialcivilization.com. If only people could be made to pull their heads out of the sand and read this.

Another nice piece! The only thing I would change is the notion that the 1% actually control the degree of “wealth” that is generally assumed. Most of what they have are just digits. They may control income-producing assets now, but how long will those assets produce income? Most enterprises are becoming increasingly counter-productive: expenses rise while income declines or remains flat. It will take a while to work through the overhang, but as businesses die, they will likely not be replaced.

In our town, two profitable restaurants met untimely ends unrelated to operations, and no one has the means to restart them. Oh well.. two fewer restaurants and a dozen fewer ‘jobs’. In my old hometown, as in a lot of suburbia, there are empty box stores and other franchises everywhere you care to look. This trend can only continue (and will spread to Trump’s golf courses and casinos). We buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, but Amazon seems to run in the red as often as not, which to me is mind-boggling. Their shares are $768 apiece as of today.. what sort of “wealth” is that, exactly? It’s just fictional digits.

All money is debt, and as money goes to money heaven, the ones with a lot of fictional digits are going have the rudest awakening. At some point they won’t be able to obtain material value for tokens predicated on non-existent future surplus. If “the rich” (who can only have so many material possessions) were to distribute these tokens, it would stimulate a wave of greater material consumption and make the situation even worse. I have a feeling that the nominal inequality actually is a symptom, or a co-condition, of the end of surplus.

Indeed. It’s also the way out of the trap – following the mainstream story we must go extinct, but that story has to die before humans go extinct (people cling to it now because it’s what we know and is still tolerable for most, but that wouldn’t be the case in a die-off), leaving the option to switch to a different way of life. Yes, there might be too much pollution etc to have time for that – but all we can do is give ourselves & our descendants the best chance we can.

Why so many 1% wealthy don’t understand? Why do we worship the rich and assume they are so smart? What is intellectual diff between wealthy left and wealthy right? In all successful, I think the common denominator is ego which is basically a strong survival instinct.

The main driver of our current predicament is industrialisation,not capitalism.
The maximum number of humans that can be supported on the current land area
used for human food production without industrial agriculture is around 3 billion. Industrial agriculture cannot function without the use of enormous quantities of fossil fuels.
Environmental destruction in the USSR was horrendous. The ruination of the Aral Sea and it’s surrounding lands is the most well known example. Was this an accident? Have a read of ‘A New Green History of the World’ by Clive Ponting,and in particular the chapter’Ways of Thought’,if you haven’t already read it.
I can’t type out the whole chapter here. From that chapter:
‘However,despite their antipathy to free-market capitalism,Marx and Engels,especially
in their attitudes to the environment,shared many of the assumptions of classical economics and the idea of progress and took them to extremes not found elsewhere.’
A couple of quotes by Marx:
‘Nature taken abstractedly,for itself,and fixedly isolated from man,is nothing for man.’
‘The great civilising influence of capital is that it rejects the’deification of nature’,so
that nature becomes,for the first time,simply an object for mankind,purely a matter
for utility.’

A bit more than semantics,I think. Marx is not exactly the poster-boy for free marketeers,is he? What I was trying to point out was that Marx embraced the
‘Commodification’ of nature just as much or more than the other classical economists
did. This thinking was certainly a factor in the rampant destruction of ecosystems in the USSR.

“Man lives on nature–means that nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die. That man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.”

Both Marx and Engels point out in their later writings that capitalism disrupts the link between humans and the rest of the natural world, to the detriment of both. Marx sometimes calls this the “metabolic rift”–“an irreparable break in the coherence of social interchange prescribed by the natural laws of life.”

In his notebooks for Capital written in the 1850s, later published as the Grundrisse, Marx notes:

“It is not the unity of living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their appropriation of nature, which requires explanation or is the result of a historic process, but rather the separation between these inorganic conditions of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage labor and capital.” – Link

Ultimately a rewrite of history can only occur in thought experiments, but perhaps we would have had options other than the current socio-economic prison.

In relation to this (appropriately dismal) piece, is a report produced in 2013 “The report, “Natural Capital at Risk – The Top 100 Externalities of Business”, was released today during the Business for the Environment summit in New Delhi.” – and it seems to have vanished (too embarrassing? – or just inconvenient??) .. anyone got a link to a pdf copy of the original report? Would be most appreciated.

In relation to this (appropriately dismal) piece, is a report produced in 2013 “The report, “Natural Capital at Risk – The Top 100 Externalities of Business”, was released today during the Business for the Environment summit in New Delhi.” – and it seems to have vanished (too embarrassing? – or just inconvenient??) .. anyone got […]

I am typing this on a chromebook,which shuts down occasionally for some reason,and if I am writing a comment it is lost.I meant to write ‘To be continued’ at the
end of my last comment.
You are correct,of course,that consumer capitalism increases the impact per person on the ecosystems of the planet,because we are extracting from the Earth much more per person if we are supplying the endless desires of each person,rather than the necessities of a simpler life. And what is consumer capitalism about?You understand it very well,as you have shown in all your writings here. In a thousand different ways,we absorb the values of a culture that measures the value of a person to be the amount of material goods that that person possesses and consumes.
Consumer capitalism amplifies the impact of each person on the Earth,so that we have accelerated
the destruction of the Earth.
A recent seven minute video by Guy Mcpherson:

Enjoy each cup of coffee as though it will be your last. Don’t think of anything else but the magnificent coffee you are drinking. All here know the truth, the humans are going away. WE are not different, no dominant species has ever survived an extinction event. WE are not different, all societies collapse and ours is well into the final stages (regardless of which theory you choose).

We are willfully blind and wilful blindness is all we have left. Everything will not survive rates of change the biosphere cannot cope with. We change forcing faster than anything in the paleo record, but we still expect the results to be slower in happening. There is no surviving a collapsed biosphere.

All that remains is to do what is right, not because it will fix anything but simply because it is right. And enjoy the coffee.

Do not think that we modern humans are not religious. We worship a very great and powerful God: the God of More. More power, more money, more domination and control, more egotistical self-worship. And in the foremost nation of this insane religion, we have elected a president who embodies everything we have become in spades. There is a certain inevitability in this development, for our God is one of Speed also. We demand ever quicker access to all the exaggerated desires we are constantly stoking. Donald Trump is the ideal engineer to drive the runaway train of our culture to the final crash written into it’s self-destructive inner programs. Figures like Trump will preside over our final desperate dash over the cliff into oblivion. He is our own sick creation made of our unwavering commitment to all the things which are destroying ourselves and our world…………..

In my humble opinion, God is just a primitive security blanket to explain away the fear of death. The need to be powerful and wealthy is is a bi product of this need to survive. I remember the 70s before the Reagan revolution. After that, feminism became focused on power, wealth and corporate ladders. I think Cointellpro(sp?) was afraid women’s movements were too left and anti-big biz, so Gloria Steinem (who worked for the CIA during late 50s and 60s) encouraged a rightward movement after she was put in Feminist leadership role. I think identity politics, feminism resulted in Trump. I live in the Deep South, and the women here Love Trump! I think the 1% brainwash women more than men, and feminism is not all it’s cracked up to be. I care more about the planet than my gender!

The part of your essay on humanity being hard wired to ignore long-term threats brought this quote by Paul Martin, author of Twilight of the Mammoths, to mind.

“In a sense we are like fruit flies, which live but a few weeks and cannot experience most seasonal changes, much less a year. We cannot know from experience the history of the planet Earth. Most of it is destined to be as abstract to the layperson as the dimensions of the universe.”

That’s not that surprising. Breaking away from normal society and valuing environmental stability over capitalism is difficult. It requires a host of practical skills, restraint and the ability to thrive despite being ridiculed and shunned. Most people are almost domesticated as they have almost no true survival sense or skills. Industrial civilization is the master that feeds and they will happily live and multiply for its benefit. Eventually the remnants of civilization will leave them to rot or actively kill them to stretch out resources. Just like anything domesticated.

Is denial the secret of humanity’s success?
“This mind-over-reality theory is one explanation for why we are the only surviving human species, Dr. Varki said. (The book describes the process as a kind of “intellectual arms race.”)”
“In fact, if his theory is correct, it might also explain why we haven’t found intelligent life on other planets: Perhaps life there evolved much as it did here – depending on creatures that became fully aware of other minds and their own mortality, developed the denial mechanism and then blithely wiped themselves out, taking everything else along for the ride.”http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/science/is-denial-the-secret-of-humanitys-success/article12428138/
Just finished the book. Very good. Ironic that the psychological adaptions that helped humans to survive and dominate will be their undoing.
Found the entire audio book on youtube if anyone is interested. Time well wasted. Listen to it while enjoying the coffee.

As our oil based industrial civilization collapses, our techno-sphere will collapse, including satellites, ocean sensor fleet, internet server systems and communication links, even the collaborative simple weather station records. Independent scientific data gathering and research at a global scale cannot be maintained as we slide down the net-energy cliff. Already we can no longer maintain global economic growth, so its downhill faster all the way to the bottom now. The USA is no longer great after it fails to maintain its science base.
Relative real costs of systems continues to rise. By the time science institutions, databases, library systems fail, it is likely no one in the next generation will have a deep enough science education to care, especially in the USA. General literacy itself will be at risk within a generation. Death rates will rise rapidly as predicted by “Limits to Growth”.
Human mental functioning deteriorates with all environmental pollutants, including increased atmosphere CO2 and higher average temperatures. Soon we will be too stupid, and too concerned with day to day survival to care.
I assume climate and depletion collapses are underway, and they now need to be fast enough to give nature a chance. This will be fatal to most societies of homo sapiens domesticus. Since we already know enough about these oncoming collapses, it is now time to stop climate monitoring, since the drivers of civilization do not actually care about it. Instead, it is much more important to start working on practical means of speeding up processes of economic, social and population collapse. Pres. Trump may be helpful here. Think of all the fascist, civilization crushing mistakes that can be made, and are already being made, to collapse our economies. Plans to increase the crushing social inequality until 90% of the sheeple are wiped out are already well underway, starting with poisoning of municipal water supplies. Remove all public medical support to encourage epidemics. Let the plague rats thrive. This should also finish off all remaining global military empire ambition crap. There can be no more empire without the engineers to maintain the technology, oil for power, and enough obedient well-fed grunts, and productive slaves to supply them.
Don’t worry about prepping or archiving too much online stuff. Think about durable hardware, long lived, none-electronic records and the means to preserve, decode and read them in future, in case any saner big brained species come afterwards, in which case they will laugh at our delusions and failures. If such creatures ever exist without our growth calamities, they will have figured it out much more by themselves beforehand. Make sure to document our species failings and mistakes, with a good scientific accounting and history, in case aliens with better intelligence and better species instincts visit or inhabit this planet during the next billion or so years.

The vector for bubonic plague is not the rat, but a flea. The rat is simply attempting to survive in the filthy artificial ecosystem we have created. You should read the novel, “Rat”, by the Polish writer, Andrzej Zaniewski. Should be required reading.

I appreciate the profusion of links throughout your blog post supporting your observations. You have a terrific god’s-eye view of our myriad predicaments and describe them well.

One can debate what is the primary driver of collapse, ecology or ideology in their various manifestations. Paul Cherfuka spent a decade at least seeking root causes before concluding that, even armed with a sophisticated understanding of the dynamics, answers don’t really reveal very much because even larger questions seems to always loom. Curiously, the path leads for some toward discovery of their own humanity and frailty. For others, especially egotists, it leads back toward the cycle of aggrandizement often mistaken for human progress.

During the interregnum between U.S. presidents, it would seem that ideology is the main driver, with the incoming administration’s lead feet poised over the accelerator of environmental destruction. The unanimity of purpose is odd, really, but I daresay results will not be at all what they expect. Ecology takes no heed of ideology and moves at its own pace, which is to say, quite slowly then all at once. We have not yet reached the phase shift when everything changes at once, nor can we predict it with accuracy, but it’s coming. Ten feet of sea level rise (overnight or in a week, who knows?) when the West Antarctic Ice Sheet goes is one example. On a more local level, Paris, France, recently made public transportation free to combat its air pollution problem, which is not limited to China (never was, in fact).

Now that you’ve found your paradise
This is your kingdom to command
You can go outside and polish your car
Or sit by the fire in your Shangri-la
Here’s your reward for working so hard
Gone are the lavatories in the back yard
Gone all the days when you dreamed of that car
You just want to sit in your shangri-la

Is a world of real sanity possible at this late date? Was it ever possible? Is higher intelligence doomed from it’s beginning? Is there any way to answer this question? Is there any way to know that?

Maybe we are fated to be in for the ride, with no way to know what’s around the next bend, or to gain a picture of this vast process from a higher altitude. But maybe not. I guess it comes down to how one wishes to spend one’s remaining time; whether to surrender to a sense of powerlessness, or to make some efforts to avert the worst, with no guarantee of any success. Or a mixture of both attitudes.

It seems clear that the methods and ways of understanding we have relied on up to now have no chance whatever of any real deliverance. If there are answers to our plight, they will most likely be far beyond our present grasp of reality. We will need to make the proverbial quantum leap – but perhaps a leap so great as to be beyond the quantum universe. Does that seem too much to be possible? To me, it has the weight of a necessary conclusion….

One in six people in the US is on psychiatric drugs, but that number may be underreported. This culture of cynicism drives people insane from the constant bombardment of advertising and corporate PR, materialism, pressure to compete for basic living commodities, privatization of the public good, the isolation and dysfunction of suburbia(what Kunstler predicted will be “regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world”), and the spiritual emptiness of American life that Chris hedges describes as a world lost in screens:

“I remember when I was twenty years outside the United States, I moved back to New York City, and I was overwhelmed by the electronic hallucinations that bombarded me in my public and private space. And so, I retreated into the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I could contemplate objects or paintings that didn’t move.

…you need to step back from movement. You need to spend significant amounts of time with print material to grasp complex thoughts, and that requires silence. It requires an absence of noise. It requires an absence of moving images. And the less we do that, the more — the shallower or the more manipulated we become.”
–Chris Hedges, Interview by Rob Kall, on the dying media, the Middle East, Rebellion in America and more

~~~~~~~~~~~

“The power of images to create [their] own reality has left us the most illusioned nation on earth. It has created an illusion about who we are, about where we are going, about what is happening around us, and has disconnected us so deeply from reality that we can no longer make rational decisions that affect our future.”
–Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion

“…in an era where fake news is said to be proliferating online…”
(from the piece cited above)

It really takes a lot of nerve for the MSM which is constantly broadcasting fake news, to try to shift the blame onto the internet, which is about the only place where one can hope to find some real news. It reminds one of the fake list of 200 online sites the Washington Post accused of being Russian propaganda fronts. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! The very accusation they put forth IS FAKE NEWS. This is similar to the DNC pretending outrage that their LIES were hacked and exposed by unknown parties. Of course they played the fake blame it on Russia card to cover their tracks – another lie of course.

For centuries, governments have planted ‘fake news’ to subvert and destabilize rival governments. Russia’s recent cyber attack on America’s election system was designed to do the same thing, casting a poor light on “liberal democracy” and helping to install a useful idiot. Then there are whole villages in depressed areas of Eastern Europe creating fake stories solely to generate income from internet hits, some perhaps even earning double pay as contractors for Russia. Bizarre, but true. Sowing dissent and chaos is a useful tool in an age of uncertainty.

I really like your pieces as you get to the point in a rather blunt but eloquent way. One thing you touched on was the short sightedness of humans and not being able to see the big picture. So I’d like to recommend one of my favorite recent works: called “Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World” by Timothy Morton; He details global warming as a hyperobject and why it’s so hard for humans to see what’s going on all around them as it unfolds now and in the past; excellent reading. We are definitely in a major crisis although most don’t know it yet or tend to ignore the impending doom ahead. I’m afraid there is no way out until a major collapse happens and maybe some humans survive, maybe. I’m glad I have no children to live in the mess created in the 200 years or so and do hope some children survive the coming collapse, because it’s coming. Keep up with your posts Xray and I’ll keep reading. peace; The ‘Ol Hippy

What happened to the Hippies? Was it that only a small % understood the concept and the rest just followed because hippies were cool? The “Powell Memo 71”, is a reaction to the “hippy threat” to “The American Way of Life” in order to create a positive perception of Big Business by Lewis Powell who later became a Supreme Court justice under Nixon. In the late 70s, 80s it seemed the youth became obsessed with getting an MBA and pursuing wealth instead of wisdom with a liberal arts degree. All the “smart” women stopped pursuing teaching as a career to pursue more lucrative careers. Just a thought, could this be a reason for the decline in education?
Money does not create happiness, just zombies who become obsessed with protecting and creating more wealth.

No proof has been offered so far that (Russia whatever that refers to?) is behind the hacks. Nor is there a scrap of proof that Putin personally ordered the hacks. Given the abysmal record of US spying within Russia, I doubt US spooks have a clue what Putin does or does not do, other than his published comments. In general, proof of exact sources of skilled hacking events is next to impossible to achieve except through reliable inside moles, or double agents. Even then certainty is hardly possible. That duplicitous agencies such as the CIA or FBI would tell the truth about anything, except by occasional mistake, would be assuming something highly improbable. Hackers often route their hits through Russia or China just to add a level of deception to their identity.

There are a few investigative reporters I follow on Twitter and I believe them, one of whom is Sarah Kendzior.
Trump is a douchebag in many ways, one of them being that he is a brazen kleptocrat. He needs to disappear.

“There is no evidence whatsoever presented to substantiate the allegations against Russia. It is an incredible sign of how degraded American mainstream journalism has become whenever such stilted stories are afforded gravitas. The whole narrative is clunking with contrivance.”

Furthermore, Moscow has dismissed the claims as nonsense, while Donald Trump has called them “ridiculous”. Also, several respected former US intelligence experts have discounted them as implausible. Even the domestic anti-crime agency, the FBI, has declined to endorse the CIA’s assessment.

John Allen – Thanks for your interesting comment. I checked out what was available on Amazon as excerpts of his book. The difficulty with his highly intellectual and complex ideas is that they actually take us farther away from any possibility of workable solutions to our real and pressing crisis. Excessive complexity and over thinking are a big part of what got us to this sorry pass. The things we need to do are incredibly simple – like stop breeding like insane rabbits, stop causing destructive wars, share the goods of culture much more equally, quit destroying the environment. This is not rocket science or quantum physics. Finding ways to get people to admit the simple truth, and begin fixing it is our problem. “Philosophizing” about it is (sorry) a waste of precious time.

Trump is a really bad guy. That is too obvious to merit discussion. He will get all of us in a lot of trouble. But the manipulation of paranoia about Russia has a long history. I was born in 1931, so I have been around to see a good chunk of that game. The desperate democrats and neocons are playing this card for all it’s worth now. It’s all part of the USA obsession to dominate the world. Full spectrum dominance. The Empire must crush all possible competitors. Threatening nuclear war is just one of their favorite ploys. Trump seems not to be on board with their scheme to destroy Russia. I would not be surprised if they are not scheming to eliminate Trump by whatever means are necessary. The whole “the Russians are coming’ is just bullshit to me. The maniacs who are pushing this line are what I find really scary. But I think we all know on this site that there is plenty to be worried about that is more realistic than a Russian takeover of America.

It’s not about Russia taking over the world. It’s about chess moves in the Middle East and former post-Soviet states. It’s about having a patsy U.S. President for the first time. Russia has some of the best hackers in the world. It’s time to make critical moves in an age of depleting resources.

Cyberhacking is a wonderful game being played in a world ruled by vicious, evil rulers and power seekers, as well as a lot of free lance crazies just out to create chaos. What do you expect in a world governed my deranged power junkies? Russia has expert hackers? Who doesn’t these days? In a world where trust and openness are rapidly vanishing, this cyber warfare is just a sideshow under the big tent where who will rule the world by destroying it is being played.

I gotta agree with the “increased transparency” solution to hacking. Reminds me of a story. A prominent wealthy aristocrat in Europe was set up to visit a beautiful seductress in an apartment bugged with cameras. He engaged in a host of over the top bizarre sexual acts with the ladies who were present for the orgy. About a week later he was approached by a blackmailer who informed him they had pictures of the whole affair, and showed him a selection of them, while threatening to make the whole lot public.
After carefully perusing all the pictures, the aristocrat exclaimed, “These are fantastic! Can you make fifty copies of each of these so I can send them to all my friends, one of whom works for a popular magazine that will surely publish them?

the refrain of Russian attribution has been repeated so regularly and so emphatically that it’s become easy to forget that no one has ever truly proven the claim. There is strong evidence indicating that Democratic email accounts were breached via phishing messages, and that specific malware was spread across DNC computers. There’s even evidence that the attackers are the same group that’s been spotted attacking other targets in the past. But again: No one has actually proven that group is the Russian government (or works for it).

President-elect Donald Trump, for his part, has dismissed the accusations and called them “ridiculous,” and the Kremlin has denounced them as “ludicrous nonsense.”

According to Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies, history, and politics at New York University and Princeton University, “We’re in the most dangerous confrontation with Russia since the Cuban missile crisis. It needs to be discussed.”

Speaking to Democracy Now! on Thursday, Cohen said that “at the moment, it can’t be discussed because of these charges that everybody is a client of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who disagrees with the mainstream opinion. And it’s coming from the Senate. It’s coming from The New York Times.”

“[O]ne motive is to keep Trump from going to the White House. Another is to delegitimize him before he gets there. But the main motive—and you can hear it clearly—is Trump has said he wants cooperation with Russia, and the war party here that’s against that is determined to stop it,” he said.

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(Common Dreams)

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Mike, I find it uncomfortable to disagree with a man who has taught me so much. But this is important. You seem to be forgetting that the hyperagressive USA war machine is one of the biggest threats to life on Earth. The idea that Russia is threatening us at this time is a hollow delusion meant to pull the wool over the sheeple’s eyes. Our recent defeat in using terrorists to overthrow the democratically elected sectarian regime of Assad on Russia’s border has pushed the war lords of America to issue apoplectic threats against Russia.

Conspiracy theories always swirl around stories like this, but you are wrong to automatically assume it’s all a fabrication of American spooks attempting to discredit Trump who is perfectly capable of doing that to himself without anyone’s help. It should be common knowledge that governments twist facts to suit their purpose, but not 100% of the time. As Bruce explained, Russia’s intelligence services would be incompetent and negligent if they did not try. In cases like this, it takes time for the evidence to be made public so as to protect intelligence sources and practices.

Finding the truth in a world full of liars and those profoundly ignorant and deluded is a dicey affair, with certainty no more attainable than in modern physics. I try to keep the big picture in mind and mostly ignore the distracting trivia. The big picture is that Uncle Sam’s Empire Rulers have decided it is time to demonize Putin and Russia in every way possible. Usually this is a prelude to finding a causus belli for starting a war. The nuclear war that is growing ever closer feeds on slander and emotional appeals to fear and hatred. Those interested in diplomacy and peace do not slander their competitors as madmen and monsters. Those are fighting words, and everyone knows it.

I am exceptionally good and right in everything I (or my country, or religion, or race, etc.) do. If you accede to all my wishes, then you too will be good and right – of course in a lesser degree, since I am exceptional and unequaled in goodness and rightness. But if you choose to not accede to my demands, then I will use means to persuade you to do so. At first talking to you and explaining why you should bow to my will may serve to awaken you to your obligation to obey me. If not, then I may be forced to threaten you to do as I wish. If even then you defy me, then I will have to resort to physical coercion to get my demands met. If this coercion is insufficient, then I will do everything I can to demonize you and destroy you.

PS – If you want a lesson in how this philosophy is applied in the world of international politics, read John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hitman. You might also pick up a handbook on stoking orange revolutions and using terrorists to overthrow elected governments – available from the US State Department.

And by the way….If you inquired for info from the State Department, they may send a couple of nice young men to your home to talk to you about your concerns. Please do not mention me or ANYTHING I may have said to you!

Too much circumstantial evidence(follow the money) and we haven’t even gotten to the hard evidence of what all 17 US intelligence agencies and the FBI now agree on…

…Every day we wake up to more revelations about the giant trail of breadcrumbs that leads directly from the Kremlin into Trump’s golden tower. It’s a little disorienting, frankly, to realize that our whole country got played quite so hard, and that it didn’t take much stealth or cunning to pull it off — just a lot of cold, hard cash.

A pile of evidence pointed to Russia deploying hackers to sow chaos during the presidential election, though the CIA only recently felt confident enough to say that the motive was specifically to help Trump win. It should have been clear from the outset, of course, given that 1) the hacks targeted both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee but only the Democratic emails were ever released publicly via Wikileaks, and 2) Trump has long had business ties to Russia, and regularly sings the praises of Putin.

Accounts also point to Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans stonewalling efforts by the Obama administration to call for a bipartisan push for open inquiry into Russian meddling during the campaign. The fear, of course, was that it would look as if Obama was using the intelligence community to tip the scales for Clinton. The truth is that any interference with the election process by a foreign entity always should be thoroughly investigated and aired to the public for scrutiny .

Then there’s this: Trump recently appointed ExxonMobile CEO Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state. Tillerson has a long and warm relationship with Putin, and the oil giant has operated many profitable operations in Russia and would stand to gain even more should sanctions against the country be lifted in a Trump administration. How much more? The Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of the Crimea blocked a $500 billion deal between ExxonMobile and Putin in 2014. Now the head of that company is poised to become our top diplomat, with the ability to lift those sanctions.

That’s not the only benefit to both parties if sanctions are lifted, of course. ExxonMobile currently leases an enormous 63.7 million acres of land in Russia that it would be freed to produce and sell oil on if relations thaw. On the Russian side of things, the country just pulled off the largest oil deal of 2016 when it sold a 19.5% stake in Kremlin-controlled oil giant Rosneft for $11.3 billion. It’s likely that deal never would have happened if the investors hadn’t seen the distinct possibility of friendlier relations between the United States and Russia in the wake of a Trump election.

The USA is now at war with Russia. The tactics are massive propaganda, economic sanctions, nuclear rockets on the Russian border, and the overthrow of regimes on Russia’s border that are friendly to Russia. Our Rulers think nothing of risking all out nuclear war, having convinced themselves that they can “win” such a war. The article I cite gives some background to how all of this has come about. It deals with some of the “secret history” behind it all. In their proper contempt for many popular “conspiracy theories”
people may forget that real conspiracies are the life-blood of our crazy economic and political systems. This is a major reason that such huge sums and man-hours are spent on hiding our state secrets.

This article could be an eye-opener for some. It greatly increased my respect for the physicist Michio Kaku :

A person named ‘Bo Filter’ wrote that article and while not everything he says can be discounted, it certainly mars his reputation when he delves into the realm of conspiracy theory and the lunatic fringe:

Xraymike, do you really believe that the orchestrated attack on Russia by the American Empire is only a “conspiracy theory”? Sorry, but for me that is just an obvious fact on the ground, no theory required. Now whether one feels all this is justified by the terrible threat that Russia presents to the USA Empire, which is the most powerful this planet has ever had to suffer under, I can understand that the steady barrage of accusations filling the media might lead someone to believe that, even though I find that in no way credible.

However if you are sold on the ideas you have shared with me, peace be with you brother. I have been around long enough not to argue with folks who have “made up their mind.” Most of what you say makes a lot of sense to me still. I don’t believe in personalizing viewpoints. I really appreciate all you do on this site. I just happen to disagree with you on this one. I have no negative feelings toward you whatever. I learn from those who disagree with me. If I wake up tomorrow and find a Russkie under my bed, I’ll just say, “God darn, xraymike was right all along!”

Your author is a 9-11 truther. He’s a conspiracy theorist. That discredits him in my eyes. All large bureaucracies have self-preservation as their core value and Russia’s government is no exception, so I don’t quite get the one-sided demonization of America.

This period in our history recalls the old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times!” Donald Trump kicks over the carefully arranged chessboard of Empire, and chaos ensues. Friends and family members fall out with each other, democrats go at their own kind, and republicans follow suit. Tried and true propaganda tools are hastily dusted off and thrust at competitors on all sides. People spout off about complex matters they have little comprehension of in a mad rush to blame somebody for the collapsing state of Empire and industrial civilization – everybody but themselves and their own tribe of course.

Those who have delighted in coolly dissecting and analyzing world problems find themselves caught up in the frenzy of runaway emotions of fear and anger. The ridiculous allegation that 200 of the websites devoted to world affairs are Russian propaganda organs or “dupes” is put out by the Washington Post, leading to some in congress floating the idea of impeaching president-elect Trump for treason, and planning to give HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) a new birth – under a different name of course, the witch hunt under the previous label having been rather soundly discredited.

We are now getting a taste of the real chaos and insanity that will increasingly characterize civilization’s collapse. This is an atmosphere very conducive to thinking the unthinkable, opening the closet door where the skeleton named NUCLEAR WAR has been patiently biding it’s time. We are in that time now.

No surprise to everyone here! The article stops short mentioning the lack of arctic ice may even lead to the stopping of the NAO plunging the northern hemisphere into Siberia type climate for decades. Eventually warming like the rest of planet. If the lack of artic ice is causing these effects this quickly then it’s a possibility that it could happen within decades. Something that concerned the US DOD in 2003.

One in six US citizens on psychiatric drugs? And what of the millions on alcohol, tobacco, weed, assorted street drugs, sugar, TV….? In Brave New World Huxley long ago foresaw the increased use of drugs people would take to deal with the lack of fulfillment in their aimless, anxious, angry lives in a dystopian society. And don’t think dystopia is somewhere down the road; we are living in it right now. Your body and your feelings know it, even if your mind hasn’t acknowledged it yet.

A friend of mine who is a Catholic, activist, and teacher has published on his blog an analysis of our current fascist state in America, and what we can do about it, that I think would interest readers of this blog. Please take a look at it, and tell me what you think.

Dec 24 The ripening of karma, the unfolding of consequences stemming from past actions, has a sickening quality of inevitability as one becomes increasingly aware of it’s dark presence infecting everything in daily life. Collapse of human culture and probable extinction is going to happen in the near future, and nothing we can do is going to avoid that. How to deal with the deep psychological impact of that realization is a primary problem facing those of us awakening to this reality.

Only by finding an inner stance and framework for action can we withstand the force of this tragic nightmare, and move on in our lives in spite of it, and paradoxically, because of it dig deep within ourselves to make this our finest hour. This is the inner work making it possible to navigate the chaos unfolding around us with understanding and compassionate service to all Beings. Finding and remembering a Higher Reality to dedicate our lives to will give us the strength and direction to continue living without falling into meaninglessness and despair. In this way, our darkest hour may prove to be the crucible for awakening the best within us….

The problem people have difficulty realizing is the extreme seriousness of the human predicament in all it’s dimensions, and the very short time frame we have to deal with it. Our extinction as a species is staring us in the face, and we refuse to look at it. The psychological ways we have for avoiding this nightmare are numerous and very effective in sparing us from the overwhelming feelings a real confrontation with what is coming on us very rapidly would evoke. We just have not developed the courage it would take to face the reality of our situation. It is much more comfortable to rest in the popular illusions of business as usual, and our magical invulnerability.

It takes a lot of study and serious thinking to understand the certainty of the collapse of the culture we have created on this planet, and the horrific and terminal nature of that failure. The disaster movies that are so popular these days unfortunately have an opposite effect from helping us wake up to the imminent reality of our collapse. They make us think it is just a bad dream that won’t really happen. “It’s only a movie.” Unfortunately the truth is going to be more ugly than any fiction could convey….

Even with those who know what is coming, there is a cognitive dissonance. We have so much coming our way, so many issues that on their own could bring us undone, that our continuance beyond a few decades is not at all likely. And shit will start to happen long before that, even the the knowledge that we are screwed could be enough to trigger the “great unraveling”. Economic failure, that could start when businesses don’t have a good Christmas. I talk of decades, but it could all start in a few weeks.

They need a way to distract the masses and war is the ultimate “look rabbit”. Little wars are no longer sufficient, we need something bigger. The coming war with Russia, or China, is more about the situation at home than anything international. The powers that be need a big war.

Somehow I seem to expect that it will be all “beer and skittles” then boom over. But I know that it will get very ugly in between. When the water stops, no one will respect my ownership of a tank full of water. I do not have either the means or the willingness to kill to protect it.

It’s a minor point, but to say that “it’s coming,” as opposed to “it’s here,” is questionable. True, the worst is yet to come, but it has already begun. Indeed, the start of it began a long time ago and is most visible in terms of human population growth. We’re now witnessing effects that usually take geological and evolutionary timescales occur within a timescale more nearly analogous to modern human history. In the meantime, many plug their ears and attempt to plug others’ as well:

Hi RDS – I appreciate your accurate assessment of our situation. You and I have near zero effect on what unfolds. Maybe the best we can do is to share our dark knowledge with a few others who can hear us, and not disturb all those who are not ready for such dark knowing. When they finally wake up in a world coming apart, they might even go after those who saw it coming, blaming them in their mad attempt to deny their own responsibility. We could make handy targets: “the witches who made it happen.”

The truth about the climate disruption monster is really grim and scary. I understand why those who should know about it lie to themselves and others. The near term ending of human life on Earth is not something people want to seriously consider. Those who know how great and near the danger really is are stuck with a message that is undeliverable, due to peoples refusal to entertain it. Those of us in addiction treatment know it as denial, and it is the crux of why it is so hard for people to accept the extensive and difficult changes they need to make in their lifestyles to have any chance of avoiding the deadly scenario which is even now unfolding before our uncomprehending eyes.

OH – and this morning I turned the radio on – and there was David Suzuki – fantastic talk …. EVERYBODY should listen, download it – pass it along .. and he’s 80 – Hey we ancients should be doing this – even if we don’t have the creds that David has.

Delusional as well. I wish that wasn’t the case,but breezily saying’ There is plenty of sunlight ‘ might be pleasant hopium, but let’s look at the figures.
The percentage of the energy used by industrial civilisation that is supplied by solar and wind is very small. The energy supplied by the sun is renewable,but the infrastructure to collect and store that energy has to be constructed using energy supplied by fossil fuels and minerals mined from the Earth. The ores supplying those
minerals are becoming less mineral-rich,and that becomes increasingly problematic
over time. That means that the energy required to obtain a given quantity of mineral
increases over time as well. All of that infrastructure (and all of the rest of industrial
infrastructure) has to rebuilt at intervals of forty to fifty years in some cases,up to
100 years in others. We are presently at 400 ppm atmospheric CO2,increasing by
over 3 ppm each year. How many decades would be required to build all of that
solar and wind infrastructure,and convert all present infrastructure that currently uses fossil fuels to the new system. The problems from Anthropogenic Climate Disruption will become increasingly severe over that time.
I came across this diagram which gives some idea of the scale of the energy
predicament at ‘Our Finite World ‘ site. We are currently using about One cubic mile
of oil each year.

I should add that when the energy used from coal and gas are included,the worldwide
fossil fuel used is about 2.4 cubic miles of oil,so the energy infrastructure needed to replace fossil fuels in the diagram above should be multiplied by 2.4.

My reply above was only a brief sketch ,of course. There are other minor (sarcasm)
matters,such as the fact that we don’t have the technology to allow industrial agriculture to function without fossil fuels. No industrial agriculture= over five billion dead within months. Industrial civilisation is the mother of all bubbles. Stop using fossil fuels,the bubble bursts. Continue using fossil fuels,A.C.D. becomes increasingly severe.

All the familiar doors lead nowhere now, and are sealed shut to boot. If there is a way out, it will require breaking the walls we contain our thinking in, and finding a new way into the unknown beyond. Don’t expect any guarantees on such an expedition…..

Trump is the triumph of the dark side in American culture and population. Anger and irrational fantasies of power are taking over. We are the greatest! This on the brink of our disastrous collapse and total failure. The epitome of hubris in the face of unpleasant realities. A last desperate lie to ward off the truth.

Much that will happen now will defy logical explanation. We are drifting into the psychotic phase of our eventual extinction. All the dark material in the Amerikan Psyche will be erupting now, including the urge to simply destroy everything. The violent video games so popular now will be enacted in real life to the not so secret delight of the children of darkness. Don’t bother to fasten your seat belt – it won’t help…..

Jan 28 Mankind is suffering a great famine. What is lacking is unconditional Love. Unless ways are found to meet the growing scarcity of this vitally needed nutrient, we are facing our near term extinction.

A world awash in fear, selfishness, and violence exacerbates our dangerous deficiency state, and is pushing us ever closer to our extinction. In our increasingly deluded mental condition, we are blind to the harm we are inflicting on all life on this precious planet. In our madness we even celebrate our power to destroy all the deep supports life is dependent on. It is not clear to us that military power is the enemy of Love. Our paranoia tells us we must be armed to protect against the very dangers that our arms have created. Deep unconsciousness and irrationality are hallmarks of our deteriorating inner state.

The Love that could save us is held in contempt by the powerful of our world as simply a weakness to be exploited in enslaving us. Those who speak of Love, sharing and caring for each other are portrayed as the enemies of the state and it’s power. Ayn Rand’s recommendation that we crush and eliminate all compassion in ourselves is the epitome of the power elite’s ruthless war against love.

Jimi Hendrix’ statement epitomizes our situation: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

Our mission in life is to find that Love in ourselves and spread it in all our relations. Becoming deeply aware of the nightmare we are enacting is a necessary first step on that Path. So, seeing how bad our situation is and sharing that knowledge with others is actually an act of Love. We would not hesitate to warn our friends of a deadly situation they might be unaware of moving into. Sometimes we have to upset people to alert them to unseen danger. This is an expression of real Love, which considers a person’s long term interests important enough to deliver some disturbing news. Shaking a sleeping person may seem violent and intrusive, but what if their house is on fire? Our world is on fire….

The festering sickness that has been true of the United States since it’s inception, has broken out now in all it’s psychotic fury. The end stage of industrial civilization, capitalism, empire, and environmental destruction is now escalating out of control. There is really little to do now but step back and contemplate the death of the human experiment by it’s own hands. Those who most deeply understand what is now unfolding have correctly given up all hope. Those who desperately cling to some last shreds of hope will be destroyed with all the rest. The refusal to see clearly what is now happening is ironically one of the causes of it’s relentless inevitability.

Only love and forgiveness matter now, even though they will be inadequate to save us from ourselves.

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Who really pulls the strings?:

The megawealthy and Washington have become so symbiotic as to be a single entity. The bought-and-paid politicians sitting in Washington are simply the marionettes of the corporations and financial elite who are dictating public policy and regulations.

Preserving the Status Quo

There is no right wing or left wing, only the aristocracy and the serfs (a vertical paradigm).
To know this is to be like a fish who has broken the surface of the water, realizing he was in water the whole time.

A Kabuki Play

"What we have, in what passes for US democracy in 2012, is a kabuki play that Cicero put to papyrus 1948 years earlier. All historical empires and war aggressors have used propaganda to claim their looting and police states were necessary and helpful to the 99%. Instead, a sorrowful history tells us they were almost always for the sole benefit of the 1%."
- Albert Bates

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